The Net Neutrality Manifesto

Internet Service Provider and Internet user, patrician and plebeian, Apple and Samsung, restricted Wi-Fi and Instagram-master, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stand in a constant opposition to one another, carry on an uninterrupted, once hidden, now widely searchable hashtagged fight. A fight that will this time end, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of the Internet at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

The modern, once seemingly divine ISPs that sprouted from nothing more than a faint, cracking dial tone, have but attempted to establish new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of old ones.

“I believe the FCC should create a new set of rules protecting net neutrality and ensuring that neither the cable company nor the phone company will be able to act as a gatekeeper, restricting what you can do or see online,” Obama said recently in a statement via The Washington Post.

In what relation does the President stand to the ISPs as a whole?

The President does not want to form a separate party opposing the ISPs.

He has no interest separate and apart from the ISPs as a whole.

He does not set up rules of his own by which to shape and mould ISPs.

The President is distinguished from ISPs by only one characteristic: the national struggle of the American people to enforce net neutrality and allow no cable company or phone company to act as a gatekeeper.

The immediate aim of the President is the same as the ISPs — to provide Internet for the American people.

As a people we must stand with him, beside him, unified as one, unified like the threads and fabric of our flag, and demand and vow the following for an equal and free Internet:

Net Neutralists will surf the web with freedom of choice to access all the web offers, free of charge.

Net Neutralists will not change their behavior. We are want to continue as we are, as we please, free of charge.

Net Neutralists will not protest or outrage against ISPs as long as they grant us net neutrality and total Internet freedom, free of charge.

Whether we be lord or serf, we will continue to BuzzFeed, to tweet, to like, to poke, to message, and to stalk all on our own time, in our space, free of charge.

We will continue to YouTube, to Funny or Die, to Reddit, to blog, to speak our minds and share our views through text, image, and video, free of charge.

We will not stand down, ISPs, and we are not your prisoners.

We will not fall to a more red-enthused regime, one that reaches too closely to monitor its people, one that desires control and voices that are never too loud, never too upset, never too happy, only behaved and neutral, unfamiliar with the deep Reddit sea.

We will stay alert and armed knowing that although living in America restricted Internet access has raised its arms, it is not too cruel, too far and far gone to even consider or view as a threat. We must know that the ISPs are inclined and hopeful that one day our daily sources for news and culture like The Fat Jewish and Amanda Bynes’s Twitter will be compromised.

We still stay away from cynicism despite our politically burnt and disenchanted generation.

The Internet is a source of energy — just like having running water, it has become as essential as our other basic needs. Whether we rely on it for work, for pleasure, for communication, or for all the above and more, it’s a part of our existence. It’s relevant to our extremely personal lives and our professional ones, our private moments and our public ones. We will not allow for regulations or fees and restrictions. It is our Internet, our web, our darkness and our enlightenment. It is ours, it is free.